CBSE Class 9 Social Science Advanced The French Revolution Notes Set 01

The French Revolution

French Society in the Late Eighteenth Century

The society and institutions of France before 1789 are described as the Old Regime. People were divided into three groups called estates, so it was a society of estates.

Causes of the French Revolution

Political causes

1. The people, who were weighed down by heavy taxes and uncertain conditions of life and property, disliked the political structure of the French state.
2. The kings claimed divine right and ruled as despots. The Bourbon kings were also extravagant and inefficient.
3. Louis XV spent his time in comfort and pleasure and cared little for reforms or the welfare of the people.
4. Louis XVI was well-meaning but was completely under the influence of corrupt and incompetent ministers and of his domineering queen, Marie Antoinette.
5. There was no representative body to speak for the people. The local bodies called 'Parliaments' were law courts and not voices of the people.

Social forces

1. The unfair, feudal division of society was itself a cause of the revolution.
2. The first two estates enjoyed all the privileges, while the Third Estate suffered inequality and discrimination. Most of the taxes were paid by the Third Estate, the poorest and least privileged group.
3. The educated middle class had a wider outlook and welcomed new ideas. It rejected the idea that birth alone decides a person's rights and favoured merit instead.

Economic unrest

1. In the 18th century the lives of ordinary people had become miserable. Crops failed and the prices of food grains rose, causing a subsistence crisis.
2. In the second half of the century the French economy was growing, but the gains were uneven and the Third Estate was hit hardest.
3. Between 1689 and 1783 France fought several long, exhausting wars. They drained manpower and money, piled up debts and made the interest on the debts grow.
4. To meet its mounting costs the government raised taxes. The peasants, who owned the least land, paid the most.
5. The taxes included the Taille (a direct land tax), the Gabelle (salt tax), the feudal dues taken by the nobles, and the Tithe taken by the Church.

A growing middle class and the thinkers

1. The Revolution drew its strength from the ideas of philosophers and thinkers, who were grouped by scholars according to their ideas.
2. Physiocrats, philosophers and others were grouped as liberals.
3. Some of the greatest thinkers were Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, John Locke and Denis Diderot.
4. Through their books and teachings they stirred people to action and prepared them for great changes.

Contributions of the thinkers

The Outbreak of the Revolution

On 5 May 1789 Louis XVI called a meeting of the Estates General to approve new taxes. Each of the three estates sent its representatives and had one vote. The First and the Second Estate sent 300 members each and sat in rows facing each other, while the 600 members of the Third Estate had to stand at the back. Peasants, artisans and women were not allowed in. Because the privileged estates paid no tax, it was certain that the king's proposal would be passed.

The Tennis Court Oath

Earlier, voting in the Estates General had been one vote per estate. The Third Estate asked that the whole assembly vote together, with one vote for every member. The king refused, and the Third Estate's members walked out. On 20 June 1789 they met in the hall of an indoor tennis court at Versailles, declared themselves the National Assembly, and swore not to separate until they had drafted a constitution limiting the monarch's powers. While the Assembly was busy at Versailles, the rest of France was in turmoil, and on 14 July an excited crowd attacked and destroyed the Bastille.

Storming of the Bastille

On the morning of 14 July 1789 Paris was in a state of alarm. A hard winter had spoilt the harvest and bread had become dear. Bakers hoarded supplies and angry women crowded into the shops. The king had ordered the army into the city, and there were rumours that the soldiers would fire on the citizens. Thousands gathered and decided to form a people's militia, and they broke into government buildings looking for weapons. The Bastille was a feared fortress-prison, hated as a symbol of the king's despotism. The protesters stormed it for arms, killed its commander, freed the prisoners and pulled it down.

Louis XVI now recognised the National Assembly and agreed that a constitution would check his power. On the night of 4 August 1789 the Assembly passed a decree ending the feudal system of obligations and taxes.

France becomes a constitutional monarchy

1. The National Assembly finished drafting the constitution in 1791. Power was divided among the legislature, executive and judiciary, which made France a constitutional monarchy.
2. The right to make laws was given to the National Assembly, which was elected indirectly.
3. The constitution opened with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. It treated the right to life, freedom of speech and opinion and equality before the law as natural and inalienable rights.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

1. All men are born free and remain equal in rights.
2. The purpose of every political association is to protect the natural and inalienable rights of man: liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.
3. All sovereignty comes from the nation; no person or group can use authority that does not come from the people.
4. Liberty means being able to do anything that does not harm others.
5. The law may forbid only those actions that harm society.
6. Law is the expression of the general will. All citizens may take part in making it, directly or through representatives, and all are equal before it.
7. No one may be accused, arrested or held except in the cases fixed by law.
8. Every citizen may speak, write and print freely but must answer for misuse of this freedom in cases fixed by law.
9. A common tax is needed to maintain the public force and meet the costs of administration; it must be shared equally by all citizens according to their means.
10. Property is a sacred and inviolable right. No one may be deprived of it unless a lawful public need requires it, and then fair compensation must be paid in advance.

The artist Le Barbier painted the Declaration in 1790. Most people at that time could not read, so he used many symbols to convey its meaning:

France Abolishes Monarchy and Becomes a Republic

1. Although Louis XVI had signed the Constitution, he entered into secret talks with the king of Prussia.
2. In April 1792 the National Assembly voted to declare war on Prussia and Austria. People saw it as a war of the people against kings and aristocrats throughout Europe.
3. The wars brought losses and hardship to the people. Political clubs became centres where people discussed government policies and planned action. The most successful was the Jacobin Club, named after the former convent of St Jacob in Paris.
4. In the summer of 1792 the Jacobins planned a rising of the Parisians, angry about food shortages and high prices. On the morning of 10 August they stormed the Palace of the Tuileries and held the king hostage for several hours.
5. Fresh elections were held and the new assembly was called the Convention. On 21 September 1792 it abolished the monarchy and declared France a Republic.
6. Louis XVI was tried for treason, sentenced to death and publicly executed at the Place de la Concorde on 21 January 1793.

The Reign of Terror

The period of 1793-94 is called the Reign of Terror.
1. Robespierre, the head of the government, followed a policy of severe control and punishment.
2. Ex-nobles, the clergy and even members of his own party who disagreed with him were arrested, jailed and guillotined.
3. Thousands of nobles and innocent men who favoured the monarchy were sent to the guillotine.
4. Robespierre passed laws fixing a maximum price ceiling and closed down churches.
5. Finally Robespierre himself was guillotined in July 1794.

A Directory rules France

The Reign of Terror ended in 1794 and the Jacobin government fell. An elected convention prepared a new constitution for a republic, with a legislature and an executive body of five members called the Directory. The Directors often quarrelled with the legislative councils, which tried to dismiss them. This political instability opened the way for the military dictator Napoleon Bonaparte.

Did Women Have a Revolution?

1. Most women of the Third Estate had to earn a living, with no access to education or job training. Working women also had to care for their families, and they were paid less than men.
2. To voice their concerns, women started their own political clubs and newspapers. About sixty women's clubs came up in different French cities, demanding the same political rights as men.
3. Early on, the revolutionary government passed laws to improve women's lives: state schools were set up, schooling became compulsory for girls, women could no longer be forced into marriage against their will, both women and men could apply for divorce, and women could train for jobs, become artists or run small businesses.
4. In the Reign of Terror, the government closed women's clubs and banned their political activity.
5. The campaign for the vote continued through an international suffrage movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. French women finally won the right to vote in 1946.

The Abolition of Slavery

1. Slavery was widespread in the European colonies of the Caribbean and the Americas. The slaves worked mainly on sugar, coffee, indigo and tobacco plantations, and were in demand because they were easily available and cheap.
2. In a debate in the Constituent Assembly in October 1790, two parties with opposite views arose over protecting the commercial interests of the planters. The group that supported the planters but promised to keep order in the colonies formed around the Massaic Club (founded August 1789), and its opponents were the Society of the Friends of the Blacks (founded 1783). The debate drew attention to the condition of the slaves and sowed the seeds of later political divisions.
3. On 4 February 1794 the Convention ended slavery in the French colonies. Napoleon cancelled the decree in 1802, and slavery was finally abolished in the French colonies in 1848.

The Legacy of the French Revolution

Effects on France

The Revolution ended arbitrary rule and paved the way for a republic. The special privileges of the high orders were abolished and France was rebuilt on social equality. The Declaration of the Rights of Man gave freedom and individual liberty to all, whatever their class or creed. Many administrative reforms were made, high posts in the state were opened to talented people, and everyone got religious freedom. The Napoleonic Code gave France a uniform, clear and simple system of law.

Effects on Europe

1. Equality: equality before the law and the end of the privileges of the upper orders; it established social, economic and political equality in European countries.
2. Liberty: the idea of social, political and religious freedom was welcomed throughout Europe. The Declaration made people understand the value of personal liberty and rights.
3. Sovereignty: the Revolution stressed that sovereignty belongs to the people and that laws should rest on their will. It aroused the spirit of nationalism and patriotism.

Global impact

The impact of the Revolution was felt around the world, including India. The UN's charter of human rights also contains the principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.

The Rise and Fall of Napoleon

In 1804 Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor of France. He set out to conquer the neighbouring countries of Europe, removing dynasties and creating kingdoms for members of his family. He saw himself as the moderniser of Europe, and introduced laws protecting private property and a uniform system of weights and measures based on the decimal system. At first many saw him as a liberator who would bring freedom, but soon his armies were seen everywhere as invaders. He was finally defeated at Waterloo in 1815.

Some Important Dates